The Blogosphere & The Mainstream Media, or What to Do If You're Misinterpreted

We pause for a time-out to consider a metaphysical question:  Is blogging journalism, and whether or not it is, to what standards of accuracy and precision should it be held?

Actually, I have no intention of trying to answer these questions as posed.  What I will offer is my bedrock belief that:

• Sites such as "Adam Smith, Esq." constitute a new breed of publication, with no possible or conceivable analogue in the off-line world (imagine The American Lawyer publishing a couple of dozen times a month, to a globally distributed audience, and reaching them in milliseconds).
• Professionally produced and serious-minded sites ("Adam Smith, Esq.," I would like to believe, qualifying for inclusion in this category) can create and sustain a community of like-minded people who share focused interests which, again, it would not be feasible to aggregate in the off-line world.
• Speaking for myself, I always intend to hold "Adam Smith, Esq." to the highest possible standards of factual accuracy, tonal fairness, and analytic rigor.  I fervently welcome, and will hasten to publish, any factual amendments or corrections of misimpressions unintentionally generated.  The "letters to the editor" box is open!

Why am I saying this now?

Because of an article by my good friend Thom Weidlich of Bloomberg News, now appearing in The International Herald Tribune, about Shearman & Sterling.  The headline, which accurately sums up the thrust of the article is:  "As partners leave, law firms tries to stop others from following suit," and in it I am quoted in this context: 

"Shearman & Sterling continues to play at the top table in terms of its M&A and finance practice," said Kenneth MacRitchie, the firm's London managing partner. "But its profitability is significantly divergent from other law firms playing at that top table. And that is something that is becoming more and more obvious and something that has to be dealt with."

"MacEwen said partnerships must pay more attention to profitability. He cited as a cautionary tale Coudert Brothers, a 152-year-old, New York-based partnership that dissolved last year. Coudert's average profit per partner was 99th among the 100 highest-grossing U.S. law firms, according to American Lawyer magazine.

"While MacEwen said Shearman & Sterling is nowhere near Coudert's predicament, its profit per partner is overshadowed by that of New York firms like Sullivan & Cromwell, Davis Polk & Wardwell and Debevoise & Plimpton, the rankings show."

Now, how one reads that is susceptible to (at least) two interpretations:  (1)  S&S, as MacRitchie recognizes, has a profitability problem "that has to be dealt with," and I allude to Coudert only to call the reader's attention to the worst-case, melt-down scenario.   (2) Despite the "nowhere near" phrase, I'm implying that S&S could face Coudert's sad fate.

For the record, as people in my suddenly-awkward position will say, interpretation #(2) was and is the furthest thing from my mind.   Not having seen the article before it was published (which is journalistic standard operating procedure, as it should be, and to which I take zero exception), all I can say now is that I wish I had emphasized more strongly in my conversation with Thom how fundamentally sound and stable S&S is, and how firm is my belief that they'll accelerate out of this dip and be the better for it.   But evidently I did not—perhaps I assumed it was so obvious it need not be stressed—so there the article lies.

Is there a moral to this?  I believe so:  The power of the blogosphere is, among other things, its flexibility and power to lithely respond. 

I plan to submit a truncated version of this to the editor of the IHT, but even if he chooses to publish it, it will be tomorrow at best, and with no assurance readers of Thom's original piece will see it.

A last word:  Thom, you did nothing wrong, and I continue to count you a crack reporter.  The default in clarity was entirely mine.

Update: 16 Feb 2006, 1:05 pm

Here is the verbatim text of a letter to the editor of the International Herald Tribune which I emailed last night:

15 February 2006

Re: “As partners leave,…” (IHT Business Section, 15 Feb 2006)

via email: letters@iht.com

To The Editor:

As the law firm consultant quoted in “As partners leave,…”, I am impelled to correct the article’s astonishing implication that I could analogize the financial speed bump Shearman & Sterling hit to the sad, protracted demise of Coudert Brothers. The circumstances and events that led to Coudert’s closing its doors were years, if not decades, in the making, whereas S&S just yesterday provided convincing evidence that it has already accelerated out of its soft patch, with year-over-year revenue up 7% and profits per partner up 20%. These are not numbers posted by sick ward firms.

In alluding to Coudert in my conversation with the reporter, I merely intended to point out that, in a business of elevator assets, both vicious and virtuous cycles are extremely real phenomena, and a firm on the ascendancy can go from strength to strength, as higher-value work boosts revenue and profitability, attracting the cream of both legal practitioners (supply) and clients (demand). The reverse equally obtains.

I fully accept the possibility that I assumed that to any modestly informed observer the fact that S&S/day and Coudert/night are so obviously worlds apart meant that it need not be stressed: But let me loudly stress it now.

Bruce MacEwen

New York